IMPROVING OUR ASSEMBLIES

What is the state of our equipping assemblies? While we purposely don’t count attendance, it is apparent that fewer people are coming on Sunday mornings, and so evidently there is discontent with our gatherings. I think it comes from several directions:
1. Most of us don’t feel “fed” on a regular weekly basis. There are occasional great mornings when we sense God’s presence, or the teaching is just what we needed to hear, but too often there just isn’t anything that seemed to be for me.
2. There is a fine line between creative novelty and unpredictable confusion. We don’t mind things being different on Sundays, as long as God is in the different thing that happens. Quality is what makes the difference. But too often our assembly has been an amateur hour with an open microphone. So we don’t invite a friend to come with us, because we fear this might be a “dud” week, and we can’t predict that it will be wonderful.
3. Many of us have either lost the vision for why we are gathered on Sundays, or we have never clearly heard what the purpose is. So we keep expecting things to be like all the other churches we have seen, and it keeps not conforming to our expectations. We are polite and accepting for a while, but eventually you have to do what you need.
4. While one of our values is to be multi-ethnic and without a single systematic theology, it is impossible to maintain those relationships (in the flesh). Everything about our culture reinforces narrow demographics, and those are the people who are easiest for us to love. When another group is leading, we are not motivated to join them in their adventure.

I am hopeful, because these are all fixable. So, what do we need? Part of it is that we need to see the vision again, and part of it is that we need to change our current direction.
1. CCiPH has been a grand experiment in a different way of doing ministry. Rather than top-down programmed ministry, it is grassroots discipleship. Our goal is to release people to do ministry. Not to start programs, necessarily (that’s what always comes to mind for Americans), but to make disciples through natural relationships. I have failed to keep that ministry model in front of the church. And at the same time, I think we have gone too far in avoiding any semblance of leadership. However, I see that much more ministry is taking place than we even imagine. Practically every one of us is involved in something significant with others; we just need to see it more clearly.
2. We don’t “feel” fed. That’s not the same as not being equipped for ministry. The overwhelming balance of the New Testament shows us that the times when we grow are the times when we are tested, not the times when a sermon feeds us. So we are best fed when we are in the throes of a ministry over our head. Then we seek out individual tutoring more than group lectures. Again, our model for ministry is designed to provide time for that to happen. The only way for this model of growth to work is to have clear guidance in the process, and that has not happened in an organized fashion. I have been preoccupied with family, which has been the right balance for a season, but I must be back in the ministry of purposeful discipling and training people.
3. It’s all about relationships, and ultimately that’s all we have. That’s true for the program-centered megachurch, as well. So, how does a church grow? By making new relationships, and we have not done that well. Outreach opportunities are all around us, and yet we are mostly not making new friends with neighborhood kids or Guatemalan brothers and sisters or Price Hill citizens, or perhaps with our own next-door neighbors. Maybe that’s because each of our plates is already full. Maybe it’s because we are lazy, or faithless. We have needed to pray for those outside the building, and we have needed to have a Sunday environment more conducive to new people coming in. So we are going to go back to a slightly more visitor-centered environment in our assemblies.
4. We seem to be capable of loving people who fit our narrow demographics, or even people who live halfway around the world. But maybe we are incapable of loving each other supernaturally. Maybe. And maybe we all need to learn the far-more important lesson of loving people who are different than us. Love is the mark of maturity. What do we need to help make this happen? More equipping, more group ministry, a circle of preaching training and of worship training (partly so that the quality of instruction and music will be stronger, and partly so that more people will share in the knowledge of what we are doing.)

On a purely personal basis, here’s where I am: We started this church with a leadership team, with a base of financial support (to hire staff and pay for building), and with my youngest child being 8 years old. We lost much of our team and immediately lost our financial base, and my family added two more babies. Two years ago I was trying to keep going, not having organizational gifts and being drained to the breaking point. I needed to pull back, which I did. It has been a year and a half now, and I have been so careful to stay out of leadership that I have harmed the church. I think we are lacking in clarification of vision, which is my gift. So, here at the end of my sabbatical, I am taking steps to be back in the saddle, working with Tom Powell to help guide us into what we will look like as a grown-up church.

I believe that good days are ahead for cciph if we can get through this current re-evaluation period and make the right adjustments for the future. These are my thoughts. What do YOU think?